Surprise Packs - Fifth Edition!!

This July marks Omiyage's birthday... our fifth birthday! Which is pretty amazing... and a bit astounding. Time really does fly when you're having fun!

Of course, July also means birthday treats... and the best treat of the year is always our Surprise Packs!

While I'm sheepish to admit that the first edition of these back in 2011 were the result of a careless ordering mistake, they were so popular that I've been mindfully making them every year since. Carefully curating an assortment of cute and colourful things, placing special orders, adding handcrafted details and wrapping it all up with lots of handcrafted love.

No promises or grand proclamations, but a quiet warning that this might be the last year I do them... Five x Joy seems like a good stopping point and while they are well worth the happiness they bring, they take a whole lot of time and energy to assemble. So, this year, to avoid disappointments, I made twice as many as usual. Grab yours while they last.

This year's edition features a trio of tags and a twine tassel. Pretty cute, right?! The Omiyage version of a classic brown paper package, if you will.

Choose your favourite colour for a customized surprise - and don't worry, not everything inside the yellow pack is yellow, colour coding just helps to keep things organized during the packing process and to avoid duplicate items when ordering more than one pack!

Want a peek at a few of the goodies inside? Here we go...

The best tag & twine sets I've ever put together... a great mix of shapes, sizes and materials plus a pair of handcrafted tags in each pack - a little useful inspiration, if you will! And don't forget - the tassel tag on the outside of the package can be reused too.

My new favourite pens direct from Japan - twin tipped and perfect for addressing envelopes and writing colourful letters. The memo pads are pretty sweet too!

I sorted through over 1000 vintage stamps to find the prettiest and most interesting ones to include, then packaged them up with love.

There are also three rolls of washi tape in each pack, cute illustrated stationery items and more... each pack includes 14 (yes, fourteen!) items and is valued at up to $50.

You'll even find clever Snail Mail Forever postcards from Q&A Letterbox... don't forget to look on the back for a special message. One lucky person will win a letterbox from Q&A featuring a curated selection of cards.

I've been offering lots of sneak peeks over on Instagram throughout the process. Pop over there if you'd like to see more.

So far, blue has been by far the most popular colour - which colour would you choose?

Washi Tape Grab Bags

Late last week we added some of our popular washi tape grab bags to the shop. Filled with lonely last rolls, photo samples and specialty tapes which never made it to the shop, each grab bag is filled with colour, pattern and crafty potential!

Plus, this round of bags ships with a friend - a second grab bag of twine, tags and stickers. Put them both together and you'll be wrapping some fine-looking gifts!

Grab a grab bag here!

Birthday Treats!

Birthday Surprise Packs and Washi Tape Grab Bags are now available! 

This round of Surprise Packs just might be my favourite... if only because I love how the wrapping turned out! How cute are feathers used as gift toppers? Pretty cute if I do say so myself.

If you were following along on Instagram, you might've caught some in-progress shots as I prepped and packed and wrapped. (You might even have snagged some pretty scraps!)

And while Surprise Packs might be my first love, I do have a soft spot for Washi Tape Grab Bags. Usually available just once a year, we pack up all our extra rolls of tape - photo samples, loose rolls, anything extra lying around - add something special (this year it's rolls of mt fab) and sell them off at a really great price!

Hope you love them too!

DIY Washi Tape Coasters

Every time we do a set of Surprise Packs, we like to make sure there's something blank inside - so you can start creating right away! This year, quite a few of the bags include blank paper coasters - perfect for having a little fun with washi tape.

You could dress them up with simple shapes or monograms (letters and shapes aren't so hard to do - just lay your tape down on waxed or parchment paper, make sure the strips overlap, then cut!)

Have some fun with multicoloured dots and stripes.

Cut the tape into triangles and create patterns... or even get fancy and make cute pictures.

Of course, if you don't have any paper coasters, don't let that stop you from getting in on the fun - any one of these ideas would look just as sweet on a handmade card, gift tag or blank notebook.

Happy crafting!

Happy Third Birthday to Us!

It's Omiyage's third birthday! That's 3 years of crafty blogging, 3 years up to our elbows in cute tape, 3 years of meeting fantastic creative people from around the world. So fun!

We're celebrating the best way we know how - with cute stuff!

In the shop, you'll find Omiyage Birthday Surprise Packs, Washi Tape Grab Bags and Lucky Dip Grab Bags. Plus there will be more fun promotions and celebrations all month long!

3 kinds of surprise fun - we do love surprises - for our third birthday!

There's tape, more tape, a bit more tape and cute stationery, crafty goods and other special stuff packed lovingly into well-decorated bags.

Hope you'll join us in the fun! We appreciate your support, both here on the blog and over in the shop, over the past 3 years. Cheers to many more years full of cute, clever and crafty adventures!